Sacred the Braid, by Jack D. Harvey
Poetry
Sacred The Braid (Euripides' Bacchae) Hieros ho plokamos, up till now improvident horn of plenty; a schoolboy theme, an easy text, an easy ticket, a mediocrity. Up till now, hieros ho plokamos, the good guy was darn cute on a horse; now he's just another cowpoke coming in on a scrubby mare, somber and stupid. Up till now, hieros ho plokamos, salamanders died pitifully in the fire; now they swim through flames like glittering salmon. Up till now the unicorn a white horn delicate as snow, a sacred mane, a head white as bone. But now vultures make nests of blood in his mane, turn his white to Phoenician red. His horn towering frightful, awful as the pillar of Taharka looks down on the Sphinx, on the Acropolis, on glorious buzzing Bangkok. Hieros ho plokamos, he stands there sweet and young, forever divine, forever extinct, starting his course; look now imagine he nears his distant end.
About the Poet:
Jack D. Harvey’s poetry has appeared in Scrivener, The Comstock Review, Valparaiso Poetry Review, Typishly Literary Magazine, The Antioch Review, The Piedmont Poetry Journal and elsewhere. The author has been a Pushcart nominee and over the years has been published in a few anthologies.